D. Eidam asked that chairpersons of Senate Committees notify him of any
changes needed to be made to the list of mandated meeting times. He
requested that he be notified of times for next year or that the time slot
be left blank.

As of 27 February, 42% of the budget has been spent.

The Administration has provided a new academic proposal form with a minor
change -- just the change of a word. New forms will be on the web page
next week and will be available to all departments. June 1 is the deadline
for switching to new form. Any course already in the works at that time
will be on the old form. (See attachment)

SPARC Meeting. Two items discussed. 1. The budget--which is really a
matrix to our detriment, discussed principles for use in the future.
Senators are to be E-mailed on this.

2. Middle States Assessment (Dr. Suskie to report)

D. Eidam had received communication from the Academic Policy Committee
acting chair Rich France. The committee had met for 45 minutes re. music
dept. proposal and the consensus is that this should be referred to the
General Ed. Review Committee. So R. France will call the Committee, as
this would be the appropriate committee to consider the change.

M. Dinofia said that the Student Senate's last "on-the-road" meeting was
held last week. One more allocations meeting is to be held (April 5).
Senators can expect to hear from new students elected to the Student
Senate. She invited faculty members to co-sponsor an open forum on the
plus/minus grading system to be held in April.

D. Eidam said that he and Dr. Piperberg will formally co-sponsor the
forum. The rationale has been distributed.

Ms. Dinofia said she had spoken at Get Acquainted Day with Dr. Caputo and
Mr. Davis. This was the first time a student had attended and she hoped
the practice would continue in the future.

The organization president Bodinski -- Unfortunately the V.P. was recently
diagnosed with leukemia. She said that if Senators could talk to students
about the organization, interested students could contact her at 209
Byerly, or E-mail her at Bodinski@aol.com or leave a message in the
mailbox at the SMC.

Provost McNairy said that the Lockey lecture for tonight had been
moved to Pucillo because of the response. There was some concern with
faculty representation on three committees--CPC, ACAC and Group-Ware. Dr.
McNairy hoped faculty would come out and meet Group-Ware vendors who would
be visiting campus to discuss Group-Ware and its benefits to faculty.
Membership on the committees had been expanded as follows:

Vice President Rydell--presented a report on the expansion and
renovation of Gordinier and an up-date on major construction projects.
Wickersham is to be complete by July of this year, work on Hash/Bassler
has begun--completion--January 1999 and Roddy is almost on target and the
building due to open in January of 1999.

Lyle, built in 1949, has had no major renovation. The dining room is to be
renovated. We will see a different kind of facility for students and it is
planned to take some room and create a deli to serve students and faculty
late in the evening on the north side of campus.

Gordinier. Has had one renovation--on the second floor with the expansion
of the conference center. When the renovation took place, space was lost
in the production area. The expansion will include food production and a
bakery area on the first floor expanding outward for the bakery area, a
second floor on top, and provide another conference room. In addition, the
dining of faculty and staff, most of which occurs during mid-day hours,
will be looked at and an area on the first floor will be converted to a
faculty/staff dining area. This will have a designated purpose during the
day and will also be available during the evening and weekends if John
[Roscoe] needs the space.

In addition more and more students are eating lunch in the foyer but there
is not enough space. An area on the southwest side will be provided for
students to have a place to eat a more casual type of lunch or to study.

Renovations to the first floor will include an additional entrance for
visitors--thus providing two entrances. Funding is to come from Auxiliary
Enterprises. Funds will not be taken from education and general funding or
tuition or students fees. It will be shared by charges for meetings and
conference operations and the monies set aside each year for renovation
and restoration of buildings.

In response to a question from D. Eidam regarding full booking March
through July, John Roscoe said it was the same every year. C. Stameshkin
asked how the Inn was doing and Dr. Rydell said that the Inn had had a
very good summer but winter figures were not yet available.

Asked about completion of the renovations, Dr. Rydell said Lyle dining
hall and kitchen should be ready in time for September opening. the total
project may be delayed into the New Year. For Gordinier, it is planned to
start around September on the outside so that there will be as little
disturbance as possible on the interior.

Dr. Rydell reminded the Senate that President Caputo had said that the
budget would be reduced by $2 million each year.

Dr. Judi Roller--Associate Provost--reminded senators about
visitors to campus in connection with the retention of students of color
on Friday Mar. 20. It is hoped that the session will be videotaped. The
visitors have been invited under the Social Equity Grant. Dr. Roller is
also talking with faculty persons at Indiana and Nebraska.

Mrs. Linda Suskie--Assistant to the President
(Chair of the Computing Policy Council) (See also Standards for Employee's
Computers that appeared in Exchange--contains list of supported
equipment.)

Macs and PCs will be discontinued in 1998. If employees have hard or
software that will not be supported they may keep it for as long as they
want. Standards are under constant review. The attachment is already out
of date and Mrs. Suskie is trying to provide an announcement re. Dell.
Banner will be accessed via the web. Faculty members who have questions
are invited to contact their representative on CPC.

Middle States Self-Study. Mrs. Suskie and S. Casselberry co-chair.
Basically all colleges and universities need to be accredited to qualify
for federal monies and for students to qualify for federal monies. Funding
will not be available if the institution is not accredited by a regional
organization.

Also, accreditation contributes to institution credibility and reputation.
Some of our reputation is hard to measure but when you are well regarded
by Middle States it enhances reputation.

Process of Accreditation--is a lot of work, a lot of it is not fun but
they want the process to be useful to us. We analyze ourselves, our
strengths and weaknesses and ask the questions we have always wanted to
ask. This is a chance to formally address issues already on our agenda.

There are two steps to the process:

Write a reported called Self-Study--describe and analyze ourselves and
make recommendations to ourselves. We do not expect the Self-Study to have
all the answers but we can identify problems.

The process culminates in our having people in the Mid Atlantic Region
come sometime in the spring of 2000 (Ms. Suskie guessed this might be in
March). They read the study all the way through and they come here with an
agenda of three questions:

1. Are we worthy of being re-accredited--the answer for a school like
Millersville is yes. We are in good financial shape; we have sound
academic programs; minimally adequate support.

2. Are we fulfilling our mission? They take this very seriously and go
around asking people.

3. Finally, is our Self-Study an honest and accurate portrayal of
ourselves? If we say everything is great they will have questions for us.
An incomplete Self-Study can get them really annoyed.

By the end of the semester we must submit a plan as to how we plan to do a
Self-Study, how it will be organized, our basic objectives and something
new--they want us to spell out exactly what questions we want addressed in
each chapter.

(See handout Ms. Suskie provided) Mrs. Suskie requests that this be
returned by March 20. This is a tentative list (not finalized). If you
know of anybody who would be really good please suggest his or her names.
If senators would like to suggest themselves, they may do so. Also if you
think of any questions, please jot these down also. The deadline is March
20, but these will be accepted through the middle of next week.

B. Schneller reported that this week the committee approved Women
Scientists Success Stories to be taught by Dr. Turchi in the fall of 1998.
This will address achievements of contemporary women scientists and will
be suitable for the Women's Studies Program. The only prerequisites are a
100-level G2 course and one Math course. Course number is WSTU 491 Topics
in Women's Studies.

(This is a continuation of an issue raised at an earlier meeting). Dr.
Osborne suggested that students be required to defend work done in 489 in
the research project. This forces the student to create a committee and
gives the student an idea of what will be expected of him or her and to
put together a thesis proposal. Too often they tend to put the work off
until the last minute and then a thesis that has to be revised
substantially requires them to delay graduation.

R. Kerper asked how many departments had a defense at this level.

J. Osborne said it was his understanding that 489 used to require a
defense but apparently no longer does. He suggested there should be a
defense for 489 as well as 499. The catalogue requires a defense for 499.

Some discussion followed and D. Eidam said that without a motion to
disapprove a course it was tacitly approved.

D. Eidam referred to minutes of a previous meeting that said that J.
Osborne requested that the Senate consider the AW writing label for all
honors thesis courses. D. Eidam said that J. Osborne could not make a
motion to refer the matter to a committee but if someone else wished to
... (Dr. Osborne is not a member of the Senate.)

In discussion, R. Kerper asked if this should not be referred to General
Education. C. Stameshkin said this was a gray area. M. Warmkessel said the
proposal should not go to University Honors.

A Stameshkin/Wismer motion to ask APC and GERC chairs to confer to
determine which committee will consider department honors theses to
counting AW was passed.

There were no objections to reinstating the labels for Earth Sciences 241,
Bio 628 and Nursing 560, so the requests received tacit approval. The
labels for these courses had been removed last year.

Motion to reaffirm that plus/minus grades do not apply to Graduate
Courses. D. Eidam ruled the motion out of order. He explained that a
motion to reaffirm is not a motion it proposes that no action be taken it
proposes that no change be made. At no time did this body ever consider
or propose that plus/minus grades be applied to Graduate Courses. There is
no way this could be construed to apply to Graduate courses; if they did
so they would have to construe that D grades applied to Graduate courses.
If we go through it, it becomes a parliamentary can of worms because if
the motion is passed this precludes anyone coming during a session with a
motion to have plus/minus grades. Worse, suppose it fails, we would have
to say that we have applied plus/minus grades to Graduate courses. We have
worked out that this be construed as a report. R. Kerper said that the
Graduate committee had found no compelling reason for change.

D. Eidam said that as soon as Melissa Dinofia decided on a date for the
forum referred to earlier, Senators would be E-mailed with the
information.